News

US, Mexico Sign Landmark Water-Sharing Agreement

30 November 2012

GLOBAL - The US and Mexico have signed a landmark
agreement by which the two countries will share
and manage water from the Colorado River,
allowing them to better respond to drought and
other environmental challenges, writes Carlos Navarro, SourceMex.

In negotiating the five-year agreement, Mexico
sought reassurances that it would continue to
receive 1.85 billion cubic feet of water from the
Colorado River annually. Therefore, the new
agreement does not change the terms of the 1944
Water Treaty that sets water-sharing quotas for the
Rio Grande and the Colorado River. Disagreement
on perceived treaty noncompliance has created
tensions between the US and Mexico in recent years.

The new agreement, announced in San Diego,
California, on Nov. 20, gives the two countries
more flexibility and creates a mechanism to avoid
disputes. After five years, the two sides will meet to
review the results and decide whether to extend the
accord.

The Colorado River runs 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

Under terms of the accord, the two countries
will share in both water surpluses and shortages.
During drought years in the US, less water will be
sent to Mexico. In exchange, Mexico will also have
the right to draw additional water beyond its 1.5
million acre-feet allocation if Lake Mead fills above
a certain level.

Negotiations on the agreement — formally
known as Minute 319 (Acta 319) — were led by US
and Mexican representatives of the International
Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), the
agency responsible for managing shared water resources and the boundary between the US and
Mexico.

Mexican IBWC commissioner Roberto
Salmón told reporters that the two sides agreed to
leave intact existing provisions in water agreements
dealing with the Colorado River, the Rio Grande,
and the Tijuana River. His US counterpart, Edward
Drusina, said the new accord would help authorities
in both nations gain insights for future agreements
to "better manage water resources on the Colorado
River for decades to come."

The agreement also expands the time frame for
an emergency humanitarian agreement negotiated
in 2010, known as Minute 318 (Acta 318). Under that
agreement, which was set to expire in 2013, Mexico
would be allowed to store some of its unused water
allocation in Lake Mead because of damage to its
water and electrical infrastructure caused by a fairly
severe earthquake in Baja California in April 2010.

The magnitude 7.2 quake forced many growers in
the Mexicali Valley to let thousands of hectares of
land stand fallow because of a shortage of irrigation
water.

The extension was granted because Mexico has
had difficulties completing repairs on the damaged
infrastructure. But Minute 319 goes one step
further, granting Mexico about US$21 million in US
assistance to repair damaged canals and pumps and
implement improvements to its irrigation system.
In exchange for the aid, the US will be guaranteed
about 124,000 acre-feet of water created by the new
system’s efficiencies.

Agreement Could Reduce Potential Conflicts

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar described the
new agreement as the most important adjustment
to rules on the Colorado River since the inception
of the 1944 treaty.

"The Colorado River, in so many
ways, makes us one people, and together we face
the risk of reduced supplies in years ahead," the
interior secretary said at ceremony announcing
the agreement.

Also present at the ceremony were
José Luis Luege Tamargo, director of Mexico’s
Comisión Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA), and
Julián Ventura, deputy secretary for North American affairs at the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores
(SRE).

Salazar said he was hopeful that the new accord
would end the water conflicts that have caused so
much tension for users on both sides of the border.

"More than ever, we are working together in times
of drought as well as in times of abundance. We
will cooperate to share, store, and conserve water as
needed."

The interior secretary said the accord shows an
evolution toward cooperation among all parties
with a stake in the Colorado River and could
represent an "international model" for other riversharing
negotiations, such as those involving the
Rio Grande.

"We have chosen collaboration over
conflict," Salazar said.

There was a similar sentiment on the Mexican
side, with Luege Tamargo calling the agreement
"the beginning of a new stage in water relations"
between Mexico and the US.

Representatives of other agencies agreed with
the comments of the US and Mexican officials.

"We are not just neighbors with Mexico, we are
true partners," said US Bureau of Reclamation
commissioner Michael Connor.

"Even though we are two separate nations, we
do share one water supply," said Jeanine Jones,
an official at California’s Department of Water
Resources. "We do have to work together to get
better together."

Not Everyone Happy

Despite the positive comments from US and
Mexican officials, however, some opposition to
the agreement exists. In the US, the Imperial
Irrigation District (IID), which controls legal rights to
three-fourths of California’s allocation of Colorado
River water, refused to endorse the deal after a
deadlocked vote on Nov. 16. The decision reflected
resistance from the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California to the Imperial District’s efforts
to bank surplus water in Lake Mead.

In Mexico, the Confederación Nacional
Campesina (CNC) raised concerns about the
possibility that Mexico could lose control of its water
resources over the period covered by Minute 319.

"The [potential] loss of our water for five years
would have a negative impact on the economic activity of the residents of the Mexicali Valley, since
ejidos [communal farms] and communities there
need this resource," local CNC leader Francisco
Porras Medrano told the daily newspaper La Voz de
la Frontera.

Porras Medrano said the CNC had recruited
representatives from local ejidos and other
agriculture interests in the area to participate
in a series of meetings to discuss their concerns
about the agreement. The CNC and other affected
agriculture interests also plan to bring their
concerns to the Baja California state government
and the federal government.

"In recent days,
campesinos and ejido representatives have joined us
in a common front to forge a strategy to defend our
rights," said Medrano.

Joint Investment on Infrastructure a Big Plus

Opposition to the agreement appears to be small,
however. And officials are quick to point out other
benefits. Under the accord, the two countries also
agreed to pursue joint projects intended to expand
water and environmental infrastructure along the
western border between the US and Mexico. Many
of these projects will be financed through the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The agreement also includes a commitment
to pursue construction of desalination plants,
including a proposed facility for Playas de Rosarito.
The proposed facility has drawn some opposition
from environmental advocates in the US, but
experts in Mexico and an official for a binational
infrastructure-funding agency are open to the
facility as long as the plant is environmentally
sustainable.

In addition, the agreement contains language by
which both countries pledge to provide "expedited
consideration" to resolving issues that may arise
should an agency submit plans to build a diversion
connected to the All-American Canal in the Imperial
Valley so water could be delivered to Mexico’s
Colorado River-Tijuana aqueduct in an emergency.

A move by US authorities in 2006 to resurface
about 80 miles (130 km) of the All-American Canal
was the source of many conflicts between the
two countries. The move was intended to reduce
seepage in the canal that runs just north of the
eastern portion of California's border with Mexico.
The problem is that much of that seepage would
end up as groundwater in Mexico. Despite legal challenges from
Mexico and US environmental organizations, a
ruling from the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in 2007 allowed the canal resurfacing to proceed as
scheduled.

Colorado River Delta to be Restored

Environmental advocates also welcomed
provisions in the new agreement to allocate some
water to restore and protect the ecosystems of the
Colorado River Delta in Mexico by preserving the
area’s wetlands. Because of extensive water usage
upstream, the river often dries up before reaching
the Gulf of California. The situation has endangered
a number of species of wildlife in the area, including
migratory waterfowl.

"It is paradoxical that the Colorado stopped
running consistently through the delta at the end
of the 20th century, which — according to tree-ring
records — was one of the basin’s wettest centuries
in 1,200 years. Now dozens of animal species are
endangered; the culture of the native Cocopah (the
People of the River) has been devastated; the fishing
industry, once sustained by shrimp and other
creatures that depend on a mixture of seawater and
freshwater, has withered.

In place of delta tourism,
the economy of the upper Gulf of California hinges
on drug smuggling operations that run opposite
to the dying river," Jonathan Waterman, author
of Running Dry: A Journey From Source to Sea
Down the Colorado River, said in an opinion piece
published in The New York Times in February of
this year.

Under the agreement, the US and Mexican
governments will join with environmental
organizations from both countries to provide
enough water, about 106,000 acre-feet, to mimic a
flood event that scientists believe will ultimately
help replenish the delta.

"Working together to find solutions rather
than going through conflict is really exciting," said
Osvel Hinojosa, director of the water and wetlands
program for the Ensenada, Baja California-based
organization Pronatura Noroeste, which played a
key role in helping negotiate the agreement.
The various parties will continue providing set
amounts of base flows to keep the delta from drying
up again, at least during the five-year life of the pilot
program.

This element "is very important in that it’s
not only the delivery of the water but a test to
see how the system responds hydrologically and
ecologically," Hinojosa told The San Diego Union
Tribune.

Jennifer Pitt of the Environmental Defense Fund,
which provided input during the negotiations,
agreed that the five-year pact represents a major
milestone for the effort to restore the environment
of the Colorado River Delta.

"Restoration will be
critical to all wildlife in the Sonoran Desert, where
the river is really an oasis," Pitt said. "It is also
critical to the communities that have lost their
connection to the river."